Creating a way of living each day, still including travel tales, and appreciation of places, events, and cultures, but also thoughtful examination of life and all that entails.
I welcome any and all questions, comments, arguments, refutations, criticisms... sea stories..

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

A moment of weakness

This evening, being tired and a bit eye sore from reading, I finally gave in and watched a DVD given to me months ago. It is Elizabeth, which was apparently nominated for 7 academy awards.

I spent the whole movie, about 7 hours near as I could tell, wondering when the notable performances would appear. Geoffry Rush was quite good, I will admit, but sadly the story and the rest of the cast were so flat as to make ten day old 7-up left on the counter appear vibrant and full of fizz..

I recall that this movie received much the same buzz as Titanic and other "successful" Helliwood movies.. and I see why: it is complete crap.

The actors and actresses are normally good, and I don't hold it against them, but this movie did them a disservice. If you are given the opportunity to watch it, I recommend choosing virtually any other activity.

"How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it." — Edward Abbey

"I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. " — Henry David Thoreau (Civil Disobedience)

"If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out… but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn." — Henry David Thoreau

"A man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting his living." — Henry David Thoreau